


Book 2: Interlude

by JayaLynne



Series: The Shape of Perception [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-24
Updated: 2020-10-24
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:47:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27176083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JayaLynne/pseuds/JayaLynne
Summary: As Wedge recovers from his kidnapping, Corran finally gets answers to Luke's near emotional breakdown on the medical center platform.
Series: The Shape of Perception [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1929682
Kudos: 4





	Book 2: Interlude

Corran glanced up from his datapad as the home line communicator dinged with an incoming call. He looked at the number. It was from Yavin. _Oh good._ Mirax had been wondering over the past couple of days when someone would call to check on Wedge. He pressed the button to answer the call, expecting to see Luke. He saw Brianna. "Oh," he said. "It's you."

"Don't sound so excited," she said.

"I was expecting your father."

"Were you?" Brianna said.

Why did she have to make everything so difficult? "Yes. Mirax was wondering when someone was going to call to check on Wedge."

"Ah." Brianna sat back and crossed her legs. "You know, these nifty communications devices work in _two_ directions, yes?" She wiggled two of her fingers at him.

Corran pursed his lips. So that was the game she wanted to play. "Yes," he said shortly. "I was aware of that."

"Fabulous, you can keep note of that for future reference." She leaned forward. "So, how is Wedge?"

Corran tried to keep his sigh internal. "He'll be fine," he said. "He's still at the hospital, but he'll be discharged tomorrow. He had to have some more Bacta treatment, and he might have to go back a few more times. Iella is keeping a pretty tight watch on all of it. She let Mirax come visit, but not me. He was beat up pretty badly. But, overall, he'll be fine."

"Good to hear," Brianna said.

"Yep." Corran thought about the conversation he had with Tycho. Corran still wasn't over how disturbing Luke's near breakdown was. He still couldn't make sense of it. He waited, to see if Brianna would bring it up.

"And?" she asked.

Apparently not. "Did...did your father say anything about, you know, what happened on the platform?"

"He did not," she said.

Corran raised his eyebrows. "He didn't?"

"Nope."

"Nothing?"

"Not a word."

Corran frowned. "Well, that's...strange."

Brianna shrugged. "I suppose."

"Is he...around?" Corran asked.

Brianna half looked over her shoulder. "Yeah, somewhere."

"Okay." Corran waited while Brianna stared back at him. "Okay," he said again.

"Ohhh," she said, "did you _want_ to talk to him?"

" _Yes."_

"Excellent!" Brianna smiled. "Stand by." She jumped up from her chair and left the field of view.

Corran rested his forehead on the console. _Why_ did she have to be so difficult all the time? Couldn't she just behave like a normal person?

"Hi Corran."

Corran snapped his head up. "Hi!" Luke was looking at him. "Hi, so, um, how are you?"

Luke nodded a couple of times. "Okay," he said.

Corran nodded back. "Good. That's...good... So, um, Wedge is supposed to get released from the hospital tomorrow. He'll still have some recovery to do. Iella hasn't even let me see him yet. But, he'll be fine."

"That's good to hear," Luke said.

"I mean, you probably knew that, sensed that," Corran said.

"I did," Luke said, "but, it's good to hear it confirmed from someone who's there."

"Yeah, sure, absolutely," Corran said.

"How is Cami?" Luke asked.

"Oh, she's fine. She wasn't hurt. She's been busy making sure the _Skate_ 's nav system gets overhauled and fixed."

"Has she figured out how the system got hacked?"

"Not yet, they're working on that too." Corran saw Luke nod again. Corran waited another moment, to see if Luke would bring up what happened on the platform. But Luke just looked at him. "So, um, I just wanted to, you know, let you know how Wedge was doing," Corran said.

Luke gave him another small, heartfelt smile. "Thank you for calling."

Behind Luke, Corran saw Brianna's head pop into view to frown at him. He tried to ignore it. "Yeah, of course," Corran said. "I'll ah, I'll call again in a couple of days to give you an update," Corran said. "He'll be out by then."

"Thank you," Luke said. "I appreciate that."

"Great, I'll talk to you in a couple of days then. Um, out here." Corran pressed the button to disconnect the call. He rubbed his hands over his face. _Just, why?_

* * *

Corran knocked on Wedge and Iella's apartment door. Wedge had been home for a couple of weeks, but this was the first time Iella had let Corran come over. Corran thought she was being a bit overprotective, but he wasn't going to say that her face.

Iella opened the door. "Hi Corran. Come on in." She moved in front of him as he took a step and lowered her voice. "You remember the rule, right?"

"Yes, yes," Corran nodded dutifully. "I remember the rule."

"Okay, good. He's in the living room."

Corran walked through the entrance hall toward the living room. The "rule" that Iella and Mirax came up with was that, while Wedge was recovering, no one was to tell him anything "upsetting." It was a perfectly reasonable rule, on the face of it. But, Corran also suspected it was code for not telling Wedge what happened on the platform. Despite having talked to Luke several times over the past few weeks, Corran still didn't have any answers. So he wasn't keen on talking about it anyway.

Wedge was sitting on the couch. "Hi," Corran said.

"Corran!" Wedge started to get up.

"No no no, don't get up."

"I'm not an invalid."

Iella came through the living room. " _Nothing excessive_ ," she said, pointing at them.

"No, I'm not, I promise," Wedge said, sitting back down.

Iella frowned, but continued on toward her home office.

Corran sat next to Wedge. "You're going to get me kicked out."

"No, I'm not." Wedge leaned over to peer down the hallway. "Is she gone?" he whispered.

"You _are_ going to get me kicked out!"

"Shh! No, I'm not." Wedge sighed, seemingly satisfied that his wife was no longer in hearing range. "Good, now you can tell me what _actually_ happened."

"Huh?" Corran said. "Mirax told me they explained it to you."

Wedge rolled his eyes. "They told me the parts I already knew. And they told me you, Jaina, and 'a few other people' came to rescue us. And they said we got transported back to Coruscant on the _Errant Venture_. I can't get anything else out of them. And they won't come out and say they _don't_ know, so I know they do."

"Yeah, I definitely gave them most of the details," Corran said slowly. He had left out some of Brianna's more obnoxious moments.

"And they told me Luke was involved, but that was only because I explicitly asked about him. Because I assumed he would be."

"He was actually the first one to know something was wrong," Corran said. "He called Iella. She called me."

Wedge nodded and smiled a bit. "Yeah, that sounds about right."

"Then I contacted Jaina and we went out to Yavin," Corran continued. "Kyp happened to be there already, and so was Brianna, of course."

Wedge smiled. "I'm sure the three of you got along great."

"Yeah, I wouldn't go that far." Corran paused. "But, then we also had -"

"Jacen."

Corran stopped short. "How...did you know that?"

Wedge blinked. "He was there?"

"You were guessing?"

Wedge took a moment to think. "No...I was told."

"Wedge, you just told me no one told you anything else. Who could have told you that?"

Wedge took another long moment to think. "Luke told me."

Corran frowned. Luke hadn't said anything about having talked to Wedge. He surely would have mentioned it if he had. And _Corran_ had hardly been allowed to call Wedge. He shook his head. "Wedge, that's not possible."

Wedge started to nod. "No. No, I'm sure of it. Luke told me."

"Wedge, when would he have possibly done that?"

"I don't know. I'm telling you he did."

Cami had told him Wedge was unconscious on the shuttle ride from Formuth to the _Errant Venture_. "And I'm telling you, it isn't possible. He couldn't have told you anything."

Corran watched Wedge slowly furrow his brow and frown. Then his eyes got wide. Corran sensed a sudden spike in pain and fear and panic and he belatedly realized what he'd done. "No no no!" he held up his hands. "He's fine! I just talked to him yesterday!"

"Corran -"

"I just talked to him yesterday, I promise!" Corran could feel Wedge's panic start to subside. "I promise. Just yesterday," he repeated.

Wedge pointed at him. "Don't do that to me _ever_ again."

"No, I'm sorry, I didn't mean that, I promise." Corran let out a breath. Maybe Luke's behavior wasn't that odd after all. "All I meant was, you were unconscious the entire time Luke was with you. And he hasn't called here, so…"

"And I'm telling you, he told me," Wedge insisted.

"Okay." Corran gave up.

"You talked to him yesterday?"

"Yes," Corran said. "I've been calling him about every other day, actually. Just to let him know how you are." That was true.

"Oh," Wedge said, surprised. "That's good of you. And he's okay?"

"He...wasn't hurt," Corran shrugged. That was also technically true.

Wedge nodded. He had calmed down. "Okay. _Now_ tell me what happened."

* * *

Wedge shifted uncomfortably in his seat on the balcony. He had been home for about four weeks and he was going a bit stir crazy. Iella still wouldn't let him go anywhere. She was being quite over protective, which was at once both annoying and endearing. Love was funny that way. Still, Wedge _was_ tired more easily than he was used to. He kept having to remind himself he was 60. He had never actually _felt_ 60 before.

"Everything okay?" Iella asked. She was sitting next to him, reading on her datapad.

"Yeah, yeah, everything's fine," Wedge said. No point getting her worked up over nothing. She looked him over, then seemed to decide the not-entirely-truthful statement was not worth pursuing and went back to her reading. Love was funny.

The doorbell chimed. Still not entirely comfortable, Wedge tried to get up, but Iella beat him to it. "I'll get it!" she said as she jumped up.

Wedge sighed and leaned back again. It was probably Corran or Mirax again anyway. Not that he wasn't grateful to see them. But they were the only ones he'd seen or talked to in the past few weeks, other than Iella.

"Wedge, it's for you," Iella said as she came back to the balcony.

Wedge turned around to see who it was. "Luke!" Wedge leapt up, no longer tired and gave his friend a big hug. He was used to calling Luke every week, but the last time they'd talked was their night getting tea. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Iella leave the balcony and partially shut the door behind her.

Luke pulled away. "How are you feeling?" he asked.

"Oh, I'm fine," Wedge waved it off. Luke raised an eyebrow. Luke could see through him better than anyone. "Tired a lot still, but fine, really." He sat back down and motioned for Luke to take the other seat. "Iella doesn't let me do anything. 'Nothing upsetting'."

Luke smiled. "Yeah, Corran told me about the rule. It is a good rule," he pointed out.

"Yeah, I know," Wedge admitted. "So, Corran did call you?" Not that he hadn't believed Corran, but he had to admit he was more than little surprised. The two of them hadn't really talked in years.

Luke nodded. "He did. It's...kind of dropped off the last few days, but he was calling every other day earlier."

"So. Does Leia have you here for something?" Wedge grinned. "Or did you come out here just for me?"

Luke laughed a bit. "Well, I _am_ here for some prep for a trip Leia wants me to do. I'll be gone for about three weeks, though, so I thought I'd stop by, just in case you tried to call while I was out."

"Oh good, because you would have been my first call," Wedge said. Luke smiled a bit and shrugged. "I'm glad you're here then," Wedge continued, "because I have a question for you." Luke cocked his head to the side, inviting Wedge to continue. "Corran explained to me what happened. Most of it, anyway. I'm pretty sure he skipped some parts."

Luke sighed. "Yes, I think I know what he skipped."

"Oh?" Wedge said. "Like what?"

"Well, you know how Brianna is."

"Yeah?"

"She's...not the most diplomatic person."

"Understatement of the century. I imagine having her and Corran and Kyp all in the same room got a bit, ah, fractious?"

"You could say that. I'm certain I didn't even see all of it." Luke sighed and shrugged. "I don't know. She's just...her."

"Yeah… Corran did say she got a bit punchy. So I figured that was part of it."

"Not that she would have listened to me, but..." He shrugged again.

"It did sound like she had some good ideas though."

"Oh, that's true," Luke admitted. "I certainly wouldn't have thought of half of what she did. Like calling Jacen."

Wedge looked up. "Yeah, that's what I wanted to ask you about."

"Jacen?" Luke frowned. "I had no idea she had found them."

"No, not that part," Wedge said. "When Corran was explaining to me what happened, I knew you and Corran and Jaina were involved, and he told me about Kyp and Brianna. But then _I_ said Jacen. I thought for sure _you_ told me he was there, but Corran said I was unconscious the whole time." Wedge shook his head. "But I know you told me."

Luke nodded. "Ah. I wasn't sure how much of that conversation you'd remember. I guess Jacen was the most surprising part of it."

"So you did tell me!"

Luke nodded again. "I don't know how much you remember, generally. These people, Vir-Azmun - still not sure what that is - they, he was using you as a sort of mental bridge to get to me."

Wedge did remember some of it. He kind of wished he didn't. "Corran mentioned the mental bridge, but skipped past it before I could ask too many questions. I...do remember a little bit. I assumed that fell under the 'rule'."

"Yes, I'm sure it did," Luke said as he glanced over his shoulder into the apartment. "I'm still not entirely certain _how_ they were doing what they were doing. It's one thing for a Force user to connect with another Force user directly, mentally. But, I've never seen someone use another person as a direct bridge like that."

"Do you know why?" Wedge asked. Luke tensed as he stared off at the ground, his hands fidgeting in his lap. "I know they were looking for you," Wedge said.

"I'm not exactly hard to find," Luke said.

"I remember, sort of, they were trying to get you to…" Wedge remembered all the past conversations they'd had, all of Luke's anguish when he'd let his fear or anger get the better of him.

Luke looked up, directly at him, then away again. "Yes."

"But you didn't," Wedge pointed out.

Luke smiled. "You don't remember what you did." Wedge shook his head. "You rescued me first. You understood what they were trying to do before I did. You understood _me_ before I did. Like you always do. Then you threw us both out of your head."

Wedge frowned. The words all fit together. But the mechanics of the Force had never really made sense to him. "I don't really know what that means."

"I guess I can't explain it," Luke said. "Since I don't know _how_ you did it. But, he wasn't able to get to me anymore, because you wouldn't let him."

Wedge had sometimes wished, periodically, over the past few decades, that he had been a Jedi too, so he could understand everything in Luke's head. "Well, good." He laughed. "I guess I'll have to take your word for it." Wedge suddenly remembered how the conversation started. "What does that have to do with Jacen?"

"Jacen? Oh, well, nothing," Luke said. "Except, I hadn't been able to make the connection to you myself, while we were trying to figure out where you were. When we were on our way to rendezvous within the _Errant Venture_ , I tried again. You were unconscious. I didn't think you'd mind. I know you aren't always comfortable when it seems like I'm mind reading."

Luke's uncanny ability to so precisely read his emotions did often seem like mind reading. "But it worked?"

"I just wanted to see if I could let you know we were there and everything was okay. And I did mention Jacen."

"So you figured out how it worked?"

"Well, no," Luke said. "It just did." He shrugged. "I don't have any good stargazing analogies this time."

Wedge grinned. "That's still my favorite." Luke smiled back. "So where does Leia have you off to?"

"The Antol system. It's for a ceremony, or something, I'd have to check my notes. But I'll have to leave here early in the morning to be there on time. And I'm sure Leia will want to go over everything with me again."

"Sounds like the usual fun," Wedge said. Luke shrugged again. Wedge stood up and offered Luke his hand. He gave Luke another hug. "Come see me when you get back. I want to hear about it." Wedge thought he felt Luke's hug get a little bit tighter. _Are you sure you're okay?_

"I will," Luke said.

* * *

Corran scanned the outdoor café looking for Wedge. Iella had finally let him leave the apartment by himself, six weeks after they'd gotten back to Coruscant. He'd gone out for a long walk, got tired, and called Corran, under the guise of joining him for coffee. Corran spotted him at a corner table and made his way through the crowd.

"Hey," Corran said, as he sat down.

"I ordered you coffee," Wedge said.

"Thanks." Corran took a sip. "You know what Iella is going to say."

"Not if neither of us tell her why I called you."

Corran chuckled. "And you and I both know she'll eventually get it out of one of us. Ferreting lies out of people is literally her job."

Wedge sighed. "Yeah, I know." He shook his head. "Intel people."

Corran grinned. "Maybe she'll let you have more friends over soon."

"I actually did get another visitor a couple weeks ago," Wedge said. "Luke stopped by."

"Oh, he did? That's good," Corran said.

"He was on his way out for a three-week trip Leia was sending him on, so he wanted to stop by and say hi, so I didn't try to call Yavin while he was out. He filled me in on the rest of what happened."

"Really?" Corran wondered if he would _finally_ get some answers.

"Yep."

"He told you what happened on the med center platform?"

Wedge narrowed his eyes. "No, what happened on the med center platform?"

_Uh oh. Not good._ "Um, you just said he filled you in on everything else…"

"Yeah, like why I knew that Jacen was there - which he did tell me, by the way. What happened on the med center platform?"

Corran shifted in his seat, trying to think quickly. "So, I'm not actually entirely certain what it was," he said, trying to stall. "You'd probably be better off asking Luke about it."

Wedge leaned forward. "Tell. Me. What. Happened."

Corran sighed. This was not going to be a fun conversation. "It started on the _Errant Venture_. He was kind of acting strangely the entire time, but it didn't really become," Corran didn't want to use the word 'alarming', "more noticeable until we were on our way back."

"What do you mean, 'strangely'?"

"Just, you know, anxious, quiet, a bit withdrawn."

"He was worried about me. That's not strange."

"Well, yeah. But we all were worried," Corran said. Wedge tapped his finger on the table and Corran continued. "Anyway, it seemed to get worse as we went. It didn't make any sense. Everything was over."

"What did you do about it?" Wedge asked.

"I - well - I tried to talk to Brianna and Kyp about it. Brianna actually said she thought it was a good thing! She refused to do anything about it."

"I didn't ask you what Brianna did, I asked you what _you_ did," Wedge said.

Corran hesitated. "I...didn't."

Wedges face hardened. "Go on."

Corran leaned forward, pushing his coffee cup around with his finger. "Down on the platform, Iella and Mirax met us. I think Luke wanted to go in with you, but I think he got told no. Family only."

"Hmm." Wedge took a sip of coffee.

"The anxiety got worse. Kyp was watching him, not doing anything. Brianna was standing even further away, not doing anything. So I walked over to him."

"And?"

"I asked him if he wanted to come get dinner with us."

Wedge frowned. "Oh. And?"

"And...I don't know. It was like he exploded."

"What do you mean 'he exploded'?"

"So," Corran shifted a bit in his seat again, "he was calm - outwardly, anyway - the entire time. If you weren't sensing this through the Force, you wouldn't know anything was wrong." Wedge raised an eyebrow. "Well, maybe you would," Corran said. "Anyway, he _looked_ calm, but inside, he was roiling, and as soon as I asked him to dinner, he just, I don't know, exploded inside. It was like he was screaming. I've never felt anything like it. It was...kind of disturbing."

"Did he say anything?"

"He said no."

"He said no?"

"He declined. Said he didn't want Mirax to be upset."

Wedge hung his head. "Of course he did. Then what?"

"Well, I couldn't force him. I said 'are you sure?' And he said yes. Then he walked away, and he and Kyp and Brianna went back to Yavin."

"You've been talking to him. You didn't ask him about it?"

"I asked Brianna if he had mentioned it and she said no. When I talked to him, he didn't bring it up."

"But you didn't _ask_ him?"

"Well, no."

Wedge pushed his coffee away. "Who else knows about this?"

"Well, everyone," Corran said. "Kyp and Brianna and Cami were all on the platform. They felt it. I talked to Lujayne and Corey later, they felt it. The kids started crying."

" _Crying!?"_

"Cami told me later that Leia and Jaina had felt it too. Brianna told her. I talked to Mirax and Iella. Mirax thought he was blaming her, and I told her I really didn't think that was true. I talked to Tycho about it, and he thought I was overthinking it."

" _Overthinking it!?"_ Wedge rubbed his hands over his face. "Did _anyone_ call and ask him about this?"

"Well, I called him, but -"

" _Did anyone call and explicitly ask him about this?"_ Wedge said. "Did anyone check on him?"

"I...well...no," Corran said. "I don't think so. Not that I know of."

Wedge glared at him. "You're telling me," he said, "that Luke Skywalker - who we all owe so much, this Republic, our _lives_ \- nearly has an emotional breakdown and everyone just stood there and did _nothing_."

"I - I did ask him how he was, he said he was fine," Corran said.

"Of course he did," Wedge snapped. "He's not going to tell _you_ anything is wrong."

Corran looked up. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"You've barely spoken to him in eight years. He hasn't spoken to his son - your son-in-law - in eight years. He's never met his - and your - grandchildren. You haven't done anything to help him out in ten years. Of course he's not going to trust you with how he's feeling."

"If he needed help, he could have asked." Corran was suddenly having a flashback to his argument with Brianna.

" _I asked you!"_ Patrons at a nearby table turned to look at them. Wedge lowered his voice. "I asked you," he said again. "Remember? A few months after the Yuzong Vong war ended? After you and Mirax took a vacation with _your_ children? I asked you to help Luke with some of the things Leia was piling on him, so he could spend some time with his children? You told me no, because of some project you and Mirax promised Booster. I asked Leia to back off, and she screamed at me for ten minutes, because, of course, she didn't have _her_ children. I asked Han, and he took Leia's side. I asked Mara, and she yelled at me for doing an end run around Leia. I asked you a _second_ time, and you told me no _again._ You remember _that?_ "

"I, yeah. Is...that why Luke told me no?"

"No," Wedge said. "He doesn't know I did that."

Corran looked up. "He doesn't?"

"I didn't think anything good would come from him knowing I asked those four people for help, for him, and they all told me no," Wedge said. "So I never told him about it."

"Then I don't - I don't understand," Corran said. "Why did he say no? It was just dinner."

Wedge leaned back and sighed. He suddenly looked sad and tired. "It's kind of complicated," he said. "He feels like no one _wants_ him around. I've tried to tell him that's not true, though sometimes it feels like I'm trying to convince myself more than him." He gave Corran a pointed look.

"What, like I was lying about wanting to invite him?" Corran asked.

"No, it's not that simple. He'd never accuse you of that. More like, he thinks you were just saying it to be polite. So he declines, because he doesn't want to be burdensome. And if he realized Mirax was annoyed, he wouldn't want to be responsible for any problem between you and her. He's declined things from me before, if he thinks Iella might be annoyed."

Corran leaned forward, resting his chin in his hand. "I guess I still don't understand. It just came out of nowhere."

Wedge shook his head. "He's been like this for awhile. But he's become so terrified of letting anyone see when he's nervous or uncertain or in any way unlike the sort of popular, historical image of himself, that he just hides. He puts this mask on in public that he thinks is what people expect him to be like. I mean, that's not really new. He's been doing that for decades.

"What's been new the last several years is this extremely negative view of himself he's developed. He thinks no one wants him around. But he's also got it in his head that he somehow _deserves_ that. He looks back on his life and he sees so many failures and screw ups and times when people got hurt because of what he did. It doesn't matter how many times I remind him of how many lives he's saved doing the things he's done. How much good he's done in the galaxy. He just sees the imperfections. So he thinks, 'Of course no one wants me. Why would they?'"

Corran could see tears starting to form, and Wedge choked up as he continued. "But he's so lonely and he misses everyone so much. And he'll never ask to be included because he'd feel like he was being rude or imposing and if anyone said yes, it would just to be polite and he would just end up ruining everyone else's time. So he stays away. And every moment alone seems to validate every negative thing he thinks about himself." Wedge sniffed and took a shaky sip of his now cold coffee.

Corran regarded Wedge for a moment as Wedge fell silent. This was so unlike any way he'd ever heard Luke described. Certainly he would never have described Luke that way to anyone. And yet, Corran could hear the truth in it, as he thought back on recent events, and some not so recent ones. "I remember," Corran said, "back when I was on Yavin, at the beginning, right before Kyp took off on his Sun Crusher escapade, there was a big argument where Kyp accused Luke in front of everything that he didn't know what he was doing, didn't know hardly more than the rest of us, and wasn't qualified to teach. None of us really liked Kyp and we _were_ learning from Luke, but I know there were a few of us who thought Kyp wasn't entirely off. Luke never really argued about it. He just sort of absorbed it and moved on. Is that what you mean, what he's been doing for decades?"

"Luke told me about that," Wedge said. "The comment really hit him hard because he knew there was a lot of truth to it. Think of it like this," he said. "The entire time you've been training as a Jedi, if you ever had a question or there was some situation you were unfamiliar with, you could always go to Luke and ask, right? And he always had some kind of answer for you, right?"

"Yeah," Corran said. "That's true."

"Whatever was going on, he was always there to have an answer, or be some kind of arbiter if you were dealing with someone who didn't like your answer. He was a backstop."

"Yeah."

"Now imagine doing everything you've done as a Jedi, including training, without that backstop. Without anyone to answer questions or talk about experiences. Without any immediate guidance. All while people have these incredible expectations, sometimes realistic, sometimes not, of what you ought to be doing. That's Luke."

"I hadn't really thought about that before," Corran said.

"The first time I ever really talked to Luke was right after the Battle of Yavin. He told me about how he had just found out he could be a Jedi and had gotten one lightsaber lesson. He was nervous about it, but didn't seem overly burdened. But over the next several days, as word got around that he was a Jedi, random people would come up to him and tell him how glad they were to have a Jedi there, how hopeful it made them, how they knew they weren't fighting a lost cause. Alliance Command took full advantage of it, as propaganda, and clearly had expectations of what he'd be able to do for them, as a Jedi. Some of them had even worked with Jedi, back in the Old Republic, and knew more about all of it than he did.

"It started to dawn on him how big this was. Much bigger than just him. He couldn't very well tell anyone, 'Yes, but I only just found out about this and have only had one lightsaber lesson'. He didn't want to undercut his ability to gain credibility and trust. But mostly, he didn't want to disillusion anyone. He didn't want to cause people to lose hope. So, he went along with all of the expectations, while secretly trying to figure out just the most basic things he could do. Mostly it was just him, me, and sometimes R2, sitting in some quiet space while we threw ideas around and he tried new things.

"There were periods when he did actually feel confident, like he knew what he was doing and could manage all the expectations. There were other periods where he felt like he was barely doing better than muddling through. But there was always that nagging feeling that someone would realize that he was just figuring things out as he went and a lot was trial and error. So when things really did go wrong, or he really did make a mistake, that had an outsized impact on his memory. But he's never able to talk to anyone about it."

"Except you," Corran said.

"Well, I kind of got in on the ground floor, if you know what I mean," Wedge said. "We spent a lot of time together, in those first couple of weeks and months, when he could, kind of, still talk about it. He didn't really talk to Han and Leia about it. And once he found out Leia was Force sensitive, he knew she'd have to trust him to train her, and later her children. So he tried to hide any hint of anxiety about his own knowledge or capabilities. And he never really felt like he could talk to you or Mara or anyone else about it, because ultimately, you're still his students. With everything he does, he feels like his credibility is at stake. And that the credibility of the whole Jedi Order project is at stake. If it collapses, no one is going to think about you or Mara Jade or Kyp Durron or even Leia. It will be entirely on him. Even if that's not actually true."

Corran sat, trying to absorb all of this. He had been one of the ones who had thought Luke's early teaching was less than ideal. He had offered what he thought was constructive criticism, at the time. And Luke had taken it to heart. But Corran had never stopped to consider how much of his own stress and anxiety Luke had held back from everyone. He _had_ hidden it well. "So, what happened on the platform," Corran said, "even if he knew you would be okay, there was always the possibility that you wouldn't be…"

"I'm sure that was part of it," Wedge said. "What if I hadn't been? What would anyone have done for him?"

Corran didn't answer. But he knew what the answer was.

"Nothing."

"What do you want to do?"

Wedge shook his head. "I don't know. We need to fix this. It's gone on too long. _I've_ let it go on too long." He looked up at Corran. "Tomorrow morning, you, me, and Tycho are going to sit down and figure out how to fix this. Luke gets back from Leia's trip in a week. We're going to figure this out."

Corran nodded. "Do you want Wes and Hobbie there too?"

"Yes, definitely. Do they know about this too?"

"I think Tycho may have mentioned it to them. I don't know how much detail though."

"Yes, definitely," Wedge said again. "Just us though." Wedge looked at his watch and Corran realized how late it had gotten. "Come on, let's go," Wedge said, standing up. "Before Iella tries to tell me I can't go out anymore."

* * *

Coming soon: The Shape of Perception Book 3: Distortion


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